Honor View 20: Great Performing Flagship At A Reasonable Price

Honor View series is Huawei’s signature in the budget-friendly price bracket. They offer features that only flagship smartphones have and leaving out some details as a sacrifice to lower the price. This year, Honor View 20 is the next in line to follow this principle.

OnePlus has created for itself a solid standing in India higher-end market, winning the competition with even Apple and Samsung. With the Honor View 20, Huawei hopes to take over that market shares from OnePlus. Let's see if Huawei has the chance to win.

Honor View 20 Design

On the back, there is an Aurora NanoTexture resembling the V letter

Honor has the edge in making eye-catching phones, and it has done the same for the View 20. On the back, there is an Aurora NanoTexture resembling the V letter. On the other side, there is a punch-hole notch that exudes a modern look.

For connection, the Honor View 20 features an IR port, and a USB-C port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack, which is still there despite the fact that the phone is fueled by a 4,000mAh battery. Huawei has to make a bit of sacrifice to lower the price of Honor View 20, which is to ignore all kinds of IP certifications.

Honor View 20 Screen

The phone features an FHD+ IPS LCD display

The phone features an FHD+ IPS LCD display measuring 6.4 inches. In this respect alone, the View 20 must give it to OnePlus 6T, which has an OLED panel. However, it is not to say that the smartphone from Huawei has a lousy screen. It still sports color accuracy but is not as good as that of OnePlus. If you see the screen from any angle, you will notice a blue tinge, which is definitely a downer. To make up for that, the LCD display makes reading anything on the screen easier than what the OLED shows, thanks to the better brightness of the former.

Honor View 20 Camera Quality

Honor View 20 has a dual camera arrangement

On the back, the Honor View 20 has a dual camera arrangement which is specially designed to support AR apps or enhance features relating to AR. The setup consists of a 48MP camera and a ToF sensor. The 48MP is not exactly what you are thinking in your head. When you shoot something with the cameras, you will have a 12MP resolution. However, the phone will make use of pixel binning and combine other four pixels to create 1.6μm pixel size.

Do not expect to have something similar to what the Huawei Mate 20 Pro or the Google Pixel 3 XL produce but photos taken by the View 20 are of decent quality regardless of the environment’s light. Prepare to have over-sharpened pictures if you use the camera in darker conditions.

Honor View 20 requires you to hold it still for a longer time than some other smartphones. These extra seconds are for the camera to take some more frame to improve the quality of the pictures. The Night Mode does not work well either, as all it does is to brighten up the photos and nothing else. If Honor wants to win the heart of camera phone lovers, it had better have a competent app to enhance the overall experience with the images.

There is still room for improvement in the 25MP front camera. The ToF is of little use, and many users have said that they would rather have an 8MP with more details.

Honor View 20 Performance

Honor View 20 features excellent performance

Its cameras might not be very impressive but instead, Honor View 20 features excellent performance, thanks to RAM of 6GB, UFS 2.1 storage, and the 7nm Kirin 980. Users can play graphic-intensive games like PUBG or Asphalt 9 on it without experiencing a single slip. If you have belief in the benchmark scores, you will be pleased to know that the View 20 ranks higher than the Pixel 2 XL and the Galaxy Note 9.

Honor View 20 Software & UI

Some tasks on the phone are unnecessarily complicated to do

The Honor View 20 packs serious hardware that can assure you of excellent performance but unfortunately, a large portion of them has been burnt on the bloatware that the Magic UI 2.0 has. This is by far the most disappointing feature the View 20 has. Some tasks on the phone are unnecessarily complicated to do, which would otherwise be much easier on some other smartphones. When it comes to user experience, the View 20 is not on par with any of its competitor.

Another detail that may cause frustration for users is the lock screen. If you see notifications and open the phone to read them, they will disappear without a trace. Even if you just want to expand the windows to read the full messages, you will have to do that by tapping on an arrow, which is hard to get to.

Honor View 20 Battery Life

The 4,000mAh battery has put Honor View 20 on the top spot when it comes to battery’s durability

The 4,000mAh battery has put Honor View 20 on the top spot when it comes to battery’s durability. Even if you spend a few hours playing PUBG and browsing the Internet in the rest of the day, at night, you will go to bed with up to 30% of the power left.

That much capacity in the bank does not make charging it a pain. The 40W Huawei SuperCharger is compatible with 22.5W only, but that speed is still acceptable as it allows the phone to be half full in just 30 minutes. If you want to fill the other half, throw in an addition of 50 minutes, and you will have more than enough to get through a day.

There is no wireless charging feature on the View 20 but the battery life plus the rate at which it charges, this is not such a big deal.

Should You Buy The Honor View 20?

The Honor View 20 has a wide range of advantages as well as some significant downers that may deter some potential buyers from giving a second thought. While Huawei still has a lot to improve with this phone, the Honor View 20 is still one of the best smartphones under Rs, 40,000 Indian have access to, at least until some other phone makers launch their 2019 flagships to compete with it, like the OnePlus 7 with releasing day is looming near.

Those who want to enjoy the View 20’s benefits, you may have to put up with the disadvantages that go hand in hand in the same package. If you cannot ignore these downers, save your money and wait for OnePlus 7 might be a good idea.